This is the second tutorial in a series of portrait sketching tutorials for complete beginners. You can read the first part here:
Tutorial #1: Pencil Portrait Sketching for Complete Beginners - SBD Reward for Three Best Sketches. In the previous tutorial I talked about the materials you need, the reference image and also drawing the grid lines and the outline of the face. However, I realized that many newbies (myself included) often struggle to draw a proper outline of the face. This is perfectly normal and to be expected. If you think the task is a bit daunting I decided to include a brief tutorial on how to outline the facial features. You can draw exactly the way I drew it feature by feature. Just make sure that you draw exactly the outline of the feature you see on every square.

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NOTE: I have thought long and hard about this. To encourage people to learn, I would like to offer some reward in the form of SBD to 3 people who could sketch the best portraits by the end of this tutorial series. I haven't decided on how much the reward will be though. I am thinking of giving SBD3 to the best portrait, SBD2 to the second one and SBD1 to the third. I know it's not much but I am just a lowly minnow who doesn't earn much yet, unless we have some sponsors or the response is encouraging.

So here are the rules:

1. The challenge is for complete beginners in portrait drawing. They could be anyone, including artists who never attempted portrait sketching/drawing.
2. Upvote and resteem this post
3. Draw a portrait exactly the way I taught it in this tutorial series (there will be several posts covering different facial features. This post is the first in the series)
4. Make a post for your entry (add pencilportraitnoob in the tags). Make sure you spell it correctly.
5. At the end of this tutorial series, please link to your post in the comments so that I could find your entry

This is optional but feel free to share your progress photos in the comments.

Is this too complicated? If you are not clear, maybe you can leave me a comment.

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Next, let's move on to the steps but before we begin I would like to apologize for the poor photo quality. I live in a cave where it's hard to get a proper natural lighting. Shall we start now?

Step 1: label your grid

I found that writing down the grid numbers (see image) helps me to identify the correct placement of the features. Make sure those numbers are on the similar grid on your printed reference image and your drawing paper.

Step 2: draw the outline of the face

Draw exactly the way I drew it here.

Step 3: draw the eyebrows

Draw both eyebrows like this.

Step 4: draw the right eye

Draw the eye exactly like this, including the area for the eyelashes and also light reflections on the iris.

Step 5: draw the left eye

Draw the eye exactly like this, including the area for the eyelashes and also light reflections on the iris.

Step 6: draw the nose

Draw the nose exactly like this.

Step 7: draw the mouth

Draw the mouth exactly like this. I think this is the hardest feature to draw after the eyes but just do it! We are just learning here.

Step 8: draw the neck outline

And finally draw the outline of the neck and her shoulder.

Your outline sketch should look like this.

So that's it for tutorial part 2. Is it too hard or does it help you to draw better? Please leave your comments below! Thank you.

Note: We will learn to sketch the eyes in my next tutorial and it will be a long post. I am still debating whether to break it into 2 separate posts since it will include a lot of pictures. Let's see...

Some of my pencil portrait posts on Steemit:

Jerry and Barbie - A Tribute to Meteor Garden On 16th Anniversary

Pencil Portrait of My Mother - Madam Veronica G. Bedindang

Pencil Portrait of My Husband and Son

Pencil Portrait: Luciana Zogbi - A Brazilian Lebanese Beauty

Pencil Portrait: Sabina Altynbekova - The Living Anime-Girl

My Previous Posts

Upvote and resteem if you think they are worthy. Thank you!

Tutorial #1: Pencil Portrait Sketching for Complete Beginners - SBD Reward for Three Best Sketches

Jerry and Barbie - A Tribute to Meteor Garden On 16th Anniversary

Tiny Audrey Hepburn's Portrait

Satan Patrolling the Earth - A Painting

The Tiniest Portrait I Ever Drew

Upvote, Resteem & Follow Me @coloringiship